One expert told me that when she first met her husband, she had no interest in him at all. He wasn't her type. He didn't fit her image of the kind of guy she imagined herself with. She was Ivy League-educated, and he was a potter. At first there were no sparks. Nada. But the more time she spent with him, the more she liked him. And then the sparks flew. They've been married for 20 years. "In America," she explained, "when a potter makes a pot, they put a glaze on it and put it in the kiln and know exactly what it's supposed to look like when it comes out. But when the Japanese make a pot, they put it in a wood-fire kiln that could be any temperature, and when they take the pot out, it's not always exactly like they thought it was supposed to look like. And they say, 'Oh, wow, this is what the fire did to the pot and it's gorgeous!' They believe there's no beauty in perfection. So instead of knowing what the person sitting across from you is supposed to be like, the question you have to ask is, 'Do I like it?' instead of 'How does it compare to what I thought I wanted?' People can surprise you."
It’s true, of course, that beauty fades and is often valued differently in men and women, but it’s also true that our perception of attractiveness in ourselves and others is a combination of what’s on the outside and what’s being projected out from within. We tend to feel most attractive when we feel good about ourselves—when we have a more honest understanding of who we are and who we aren’t; when we’ve taken responsibility for creating our own lives by engaging deeply in relationships and endeavors in the world. In other words, when we fall on the side of generativity over stagnation, when we embrace our midlife station in life as an impetus for change, we can appear more attractive—to ourselves and others—sometimes in a way that no amount of Botox can achieve. You say that you have a loving husband and fulfilling work, but maybe this despair can prompt you to ask yourself some questions: How did your mom feel about aging when you were growing up and what positive or negative attitudes about aging and appearance have you internalized? Have you considered your priorities and how they might shift at this point in your life? For instance, are there ways in which you might want to connect more to others in your community? Are there new ways of engaging in the world that would make an even greater impact or that you’d feel proud to leave behind? Is there a hole that this anxiety about your appearance has been temporarily filling—meaning, if you weren’t worrying about your appearance, what might that time be spent on? Grappling with these questions, more than with what you see in the mirror, will help you not to lose those “good, active years” you still have ahead of you.